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The Almighty Buck United States

The US Dollar is On Track For Its Worst Year in Modern History (semafor.com) 149

Posted by msmash from the keeping-count dept.
The US dollar is on track for its worst year in modern history and may not be done falling yet. The greenback is down more than 7% this year and Morgan Stanley predicts it could fall another 10%. Semafor: A weaker dollar could make US exports more competitive, boosting Trump's plan to rebalance US trade, but makes imports more expensive, adding to the sting of tariffs.

The question ahead is whether the dollar doesn't just lose its value, but its role at the center of the global financial system. So far, there are few alternatives. And efforts to de-dollarize -- central banks shifting into gold, China shoveling its currency into developing nations through swap lines -- haven't meaningfully shifted the picture.

The US Dollar is On Track For Its Worst Year in Modern History More | Reply

The US Dollar is On Track For Its Worst Year in Modern History

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  • Time to resurrect the old meme... (Score:3)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @10:08AM (#65496542)

    And efforts to de-dollarize -- central banks shifting into gold, China shoveling its currency into developing nations through swap lines -- haven't meaningfully shifted the picture...YET.

    Fixed that for you!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      Fundamentally, US dollar is backed not by gold but by carrier strike groups. Until someone else has an answer to that USD will continue being world reserve currency no matter what US Fed does for monetary policy.

      • Re:Time to resurrect the old meme... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @10:32AM (#65496600)

        Carrier strike groups require a lot of stuff that must be bought with dollars.

        At some point in time that isn't too far in the future, the stuff that the dollar buys will not be enough to support both carrier strike groups and the billionaire class.

        We will see if the military "AI" can compensate the loss of maintenance due to the decline of dollar value.

        I will not delve in minor detail like the relevance of the carrier strike groups or the lack of alliances, which the Trumpistan gladly destroyed.

        • I get the impression the US military is already less effective than many believe. Nothing quite as drastic as when Putin ordered to roll the tanks and the armor turned out to be egg cartons. But corruption has definitely been sucking something out. And there's no denying the manpower shortage as well.

          At one time I thought about joining the military. I'm also in favor of some level of compulsory service. But that's all contingent on sticking to the mission, that oath they take. For anyone considering enlisti

      • What does that even mean? Keep using the dollar or you'll get bombed (and warned early by the drunken defense sec?)

    • Re:Time to resurrect the old meme... (Score:5, Informative)

      by SouthSeb ( 8814349 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @10:37AM (#65496614)

      Just to add some insight:

      Trump, in a Truth Social post, said: “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.”

      https://apnews.com/article/tru... [apnews.com]

      • 100% MicroDollars is still almost nothing. Again, the tariffs mostly work against the US itself.

      • they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful

        I wish he would get a bigger vocabulary.

      • The way the Idiot King is pissing countries off, it might not be long before the whole world realigns its trade to leave the US mostly out in the cold. That would be a huge win for Putin, of course, so Trump would be fine with that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zocalo ( 252965 )
        Unofficially, it's already done. It used to be that if you were going to somewhere with a weak and mostly cash-based economy you took the bulk of your cash in USD and the rest in the local currency. For quite some time now retailers in such economies have been just as likely to take Euros or Sterling as they were USD when they are after some hard currency, and on my last couple of trips I've actually been asked for Euros or Sterling in preference to USD. My local contact for my upcoming trip to the Far E

      • Truth is : Petro-Dollars.

        Price for barrels of oil traded in $US. I read that the real reason for the gulf war wasnâ(TM)t WoMD but rather that Iraq was threatening to trade in Petroleum-Euros instead. Might even be true.

        Now, if BRICS or another consortium of countries start trading in another currency, the $US-peso will crash.

      • Just to add some insight:

        Trump, in a Truth Social post, said: “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.”

        https://apnews.com/article/tru... [apnews.com]

        So clueless.

        The fact is that the trade imbalance is the largest single factor that makes the US dollar the world currency -- and also helps to keep the federal debt cheap. All of those countries that have a trade surplus with us send us lots of goods and in exchange they get lots of dollars. What do they do with them? They buy US-denominated securities, including treasury bonds. So many people and organizations around the world holding large reserves of US-denominated securities is what makes the doll

    • Some $245bn worth is circulating the news right now https://www.financialexpress.c... [financialexpress.com]

  • Deficit spending causes inflation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @10:09AM (#65496548)
    This inflation is the direct result of deficit spending by the government - every time monetary supply is expanded (i.e., printing money) the value of existing currency decreases. This way higher deficits result in higher inflationary pressures (i.e., things cost more, dollars exchange rate goes down). This is why many conservatives objected to the BBB, as it continued and expanded deficit spending.

    • Re:Deficit spending causes inflation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nugoo ( 1794744 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @10:20AM (#65496566)

      This is why many conservatives objected to the BBB, as it continued and expanded deficit spending.

      Which conservatives objected to the BBB, and didn't end up voting for it?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        Notably, Elon Musk, at great risk to his personal fortune.

        • I think he'll be fine. He could lose 99.9% overnight and still be better of than the rest of the country.

        • Re:Deficit spending causes inflation (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ZombieCatInABox ( 5665338 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @11:11AM (#65496700)

          Elon Musk is not a conservative. Nor a liberal. He's whatever he needs to be at any given moment.

          When federal money was raining on his brand new telsa factory he was all for left-leaning, social governement. And all conservatives hated him, and liberals loved him. But when said governements started annoying him about things like, you know, safety regulations, worker's conditions, etc, then he turned all anti-governement, pro-business, "I'm-going-to-move-everything-to-Texas" right-wing conservative. And sudenly, all conservatives started loving him and liberals started burning teslas.

          Trump is the same. He was a card carrying democrat for more than four decades and a good friend of the Clintons... Until he decided to run for president, when he instantly switched to conservative for logistical reasons. And now conservatives think he's the second coming of Christ (literaly).

          Musk and Trump are opportunistic sociopaths. They are whatever the fuck they need to be at any given time to court whatever part of the population they need to court in order to accomplish their goals.

          • Elon Musk is not a conservative. Nor a liberal. He's whatever he needs to be at any given moment.

            While I think there is some truth to this, I read a compelling case for why he has gone to the Trump side of things. One of Elon's children from his first marriage is now a trans woman and it seems that Elon has sort of gone bat shit crazy in terms of dealing with this. Instead of trying to find some way to accept this, he went to Trump simply because he knew Trump would bash trans people (doing so was a very effective part of his 2024 TV advertising). I think it may honestly be that simple.

        • You think if Elon thought different he would have voted for it? Do you know how congress works? Even the world's richest man can't simply go in and vote for it.

          The GP postulated a scenario where people who could vote didn't. Elon Musk can't vote.

      • I hate to say this outloud, but my respect for Rand Paul went up a little bit.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sebby ( 238625 )

          I hate to say this outloud, but my respect for Rand Paul went up a little bit.

          I, personally (no knock against anyone else for feeling differently), don't respect him anymore than I did before, but I do acknowledge when politicians that I don't hold in high regard (for lack of less family-friendly terms to use) actually do the right thing, because I do respect that in someone, even if I don't respect anything else they've done or represent otherwise.

          For example, I still don't think Mike Pence is a particularly good person in general (he jumped onto the Trump train, and was a willing p

          • I guess you are right. For a Doctor, Rand Paul does not seem to respect Science very much. I do like Pence as a person, however, you are right that he took a lot of french from Trump before finally standing up to him, he enabled Trump. Shame. So here we are.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gtall ( 79522 )

              He doesn't respect science because he set up his own Ophthalmology board in Kentucky because he could not pass a real Ophthalmology board test. He has never had any respect for science....or reason for that matter.

              • On the plus side, Rand Paul did vote against the Big Bad Bill on the grounds that it increases the Deficit. So with narrow glasses, on this one issue, I think that was cool. All he asked is that the Debt limit not be raised over 500 billion, or something like that, instead of 5 Trillion. That seems better than the pork that the Alaska senator got, not that I condemn that. A senator should be for their voters, and for the general welfare. Something got really twisted in America. I have a hard t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mad7777 ( 946676 )

        Rand Paul

        • Bullshit. Rand Paul like the other three Republicans that voted against it were allowed to vote against it because they are otherwise in vulnerable districts and could face a primary Challenger or even a viable Democrat. Paul especially because Kentucky has a Democrat Governor.

          The Republicans do this every time they do something really horrific to americans. The wider the margin they have in Congress the more horrific the thing we get.

          They know that the bill is insanely unpopular. Every forum I go
      • Which white necessary for passing the bill.

        In other words the ones that could conveniently and politically be allowed to vote against the bill for show.

        The bigger the margin you give the right wing extremists the more shit they can do to you to hurt you because the more of those vulnerable senators can vote for nasty shit. Same with the House of Representatives.
      • None. They had spine removal surgery.
    • It is not as simple as "Deficit spending causes inflation". Deficit spending only leads to inflation if the demand for dollars outside the U.S. is less than the generated deficit. Since WWII there has been a high demand for dollars outside of the U.S. as it is the de-facto currency of world trade. Up until Trump's uneducated policies we have been able to trade our dollars for products produced outside the U.S. because the world wanted our dollars. Trump is not only reducing demand for dollars outside th

    • How come the stock market outperforms inflation and keeps setting new record highs? How are you going to buy the S&P 500 if you don't hold dollars?

    • Deficit spending isn't a problem. 80% of it goes directly to the American people with another 20% borrowed overseas.

      The stuff that we loan ourselves is just money supply. There's no issues with it as long as you're not giving it all to the 1%.

      The reason you're seeing inflation is your taking all that borrowed money and giving it to about 2,000 americans. They are then using all of the money you gave them to buy up their competitors and jack up prices. That's your inflation.

      As for the 7 trillion

    • Re:Deficit spending causes inflation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by karmawarrior ( 311177 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @12:48PM (#65496946) Journal

      The BBB was supported by the overwhelming majority of conservatives. That's why the Republicans passed it. One or two billionaires bitching about it doesn't change that.

      The Republicans don't, and never have, cared about deficit spending. It was Saint Reagan who actually started the modern trend of overspending. Literally the only time they bring it up is when there's a democrat in office and they want to shoot down any spending that might alleviate poverty. Meanwhile, historically, Democrats have done better controlling the debt than Republicans.

      • Back in the George Will days, I respected the word "conservative", but no more. I think MAGAs are just a cult now, and they make no sense to me anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      This is why many conservatives objected to the BBB, as it continued and expanded deficit spending.

      Objected, complained, stamped their feet, threatened...and then meekly voted for it anyway, because they were too chickenshit fearful of a MAGA backlash. This is largely the same crowd, mind you, that passed another deficit-buster in 2017, but merrily cried foul - even shutting down the government a few times - anytime a Democrat was in the White House.

      That's real principled leadership, real profiles of c

  • Lake Wobegon exchange rates (Score:3)

    by Tim the Gecko ( 745081 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @10:17AM (#65496560)
    Calling for stronger Chinese and Japanese currencies [reuters.com] is essentially calling for a weaker dollar. Unless we want all currencies to be "stronger than average".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      Not sure about Japan, but China does manipulate its currency, devaluing Yuan in an indirect subsidy to Chinese exports. Doing so is against WTO rules.

      • I'm curious. I've heard this before. How exactly do they do this? What's the mechanism?

        Thing is, there must be a cost to this. If they subsidize exports, that must mean they're penalizing imports and that's reducing the standard of living of Chinese citizens.

  • No! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @10:25AM (#65496584)

    Why would Obama allow this to happen!

  • ... are having a hard time justifying their favorable ratings. With one the US has moved from AAA to AA a few years back and even that was seen as being nice and kind. I hope the US doesn't squander trust beyond the Trump era, lest you guys be sitting on a pile of money that the world has finally noticed not being worth the paper it's printed on.

    It is my opinion that you could have a true revolution, a bottom-up redo of the US constitution and fixes for the most glaring broken parts of the US system up and running within months without even a single bullet fired. AFAICT from across the pond basically _everyone_ agrees that the current state of things has become untenable. You don't need to be a bunch of Trumpists storming the Capitol to see this.

    • I see... people wearing masks taking citizens off of the streets, and detaining them indefinitely without a trial. I see, propaganda spread like wild fire. I see the POTUS getting his own military and police force. I see the US going through a difficult time period. I see MAGAs love their guns and this will not go well without a lot of blood being spilled.
    • I don't think the problem is with the Constitution. Any Constitution is just a piece of paper, unless people collectively honor it. You could say it makes the Executive too strong, but this has happened gradually as we allowed it, or asked for it, since Congress has become crippled with partisan politics. For example the Constitution gives the power to set tariffs to Congress, not the President. Yet look where we are now.
      • As Ben Franklin said, we have a Republic, if we can keep it. It is a belief system. There are so many examples from History about decent countries spiraling out of control, and yet, many can not understand and learn from this. As my dad said: "you can learn from being bit by a snake, or you can see someone else being bit and learn from that".

    • It is my opinion that you could have a true revolution, a bottom-up redo of the US constitution and fixes for the most glaring broken parts of the US system up and running within months without even a single bullet fired. AFAICT from across the pond basically _everyone_ agrees that the current state of things has become untenable. You don't need to be a bunch of Trumpists storming the Capitol to see this.

      It's being worked on. Clarence Thomas would fast track this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Thomas is the poster child for MAGA corruption, in my humble opinion. Your fault for getting me off topic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Clarence Thomas would fast track the road to Hell if he thought he could make buck out it.

  • the lower USD, isn't preventing Americans from traveling abroad, but is is preventing them from identifiying as American and pretending to be from Canada, as show in the first few seconds of this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • It's always bad news with the dollar (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Friday July 04, 2025 @11:13AM (#65496714) Homepage

    I live in Canada. Every time you hear news about the dollar, it's bad news, whether it goes up or down. If it goes up the news reporters go and interview exporters who complain that this hurts their business, and when it goes down the reporters interview importers who explain how this is going to make all the products we buy more expensive. It's honestly very tiring. I mostly just ignore stories like this.

    If a currency is functioning normally (not being manipulated) then it works to automatically balance trade. If Americans start buying more and more from overseas, then supply and demand in the currency market will cause the dollar's value to go down, which makes American products and investments more attractive to everyone else. You just have to understand that the US buys a lot of cheap products from overseas, but mostly exports expensive high end products like aircraft parts and machinery. People around the world really like investing in US companies (and even T-bills) because the US market is large, profitable, and safe. Therefore the long term trend has been that Americans import a lot of cheap products in exchange for a lot of investment capital flowing into the US. This kept industry humming, but also had the effect of pushing up housing prices, as a lot of people invest in US real estate.

    The dollar has traditionally been so high because the US was considered to be such a safe place to invest. Investors around the world wanted better returns, and foreign governments wanted a safe reserve currency, and for the most part the US government took advantage of this because it gave the US access to very cheap capital (borrowing) which allowed deficit spending, and it also gave the US enormous leverage over pretty much every other country in the world financially. For instance, the sanctions against Iran, North Korea, and Russia are based on the fact that the global system of trade is mostly based on the US dollar.

    The US dollar is falling because even though Americans are still buying lots of stuff from overseas, there's a notable concern about the stability of the US as both a safe place to invest, and as a good investment return. Now I personally think there's still a potential for high return on investment if I were to invest in the US, but I do also have concerns about any money I have in US investments because you just don't know if the US government would do something drastic like confiscate foreign investment, etc. I don't consider it likely, but it's not something I would have worried about 10 years ago, but it's at least a remote possibility now.

    I think the goal of the US is to bring more manufacturing back onshore. I think this is a reasonable goal. There are always winners and losers in any change. Bringing back manufacturing jobs tends to help the working class, as does limiting the supply of cheap labor by deporting lots of people. Note that while this is probably a net benefit to the working class, corporations won't like it. They prefer a strong US dollar which makes borrowing cheap and they prefer low wages too, so they're generally pro-immigration. But that's the story of the last few years... the working class has now gained political influence, not just in the US but across the western world, and the right-wing political parties have embraced them, which is a bit surprising because the right-wing parties have traditionally been the party of big business.

    Big business now finds itself politically homeless, or certainly far less influential than they used to be. I suspect they're just hoping to ride this out. I'm not convinced this is a temporary situation. I believe that Trump has proven that the working class is now in play politically, and both parties will bend themselves towards catering to their interests. We even saw this in Canada with the liberal party running a guy who's very moderate, perhaps even right-of-center in some ways, and reduced immigration significantly even before the election earlier this year. I think this is just the ne

    • tl;dr
      The emperor's new clothes look great!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      "I think the goal of the US is to bring more manufacturing back onshore." Bullshit. The only reason la Presidenta decided to declare economic war on the rest of the world (except for lovely Putin and Israel) is because then he could act like a "dealmaker" fixing the problems he caused. Only the Maggots are stupid enough to believe it is about bringing manufacturing onshore.

      The easy tell is that if they managed to do that, they would not have the people to staff that manufacturing now that la Presidenta is e

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by RobinH ( 124750 )
        Sorry, you've misunderstood me. Let me try to clarify. When I said "the goal of the US" I didn't mean the traditional republican politicians. I mean the majority of the political will in the US. The voters. The large number of people who first voted for Obama, then wanted Sanders, and then, probably begrudgingly, voted for Trump. These are working class folks who don't want to drive for Uber or work in an Amazon fulfillment center, and would rather have a good paying factory job like they hear some pr

        • Short of union based industries like steel or automotive there are no good paying factory jobs. What factory is going to pay a person to turn bolts all day and support a family and mortgage? The 1950s aren't returning.

  • The dollar achieved its lofty position in world finance because the U.S. came out of WWII unscathed as the world's greatest industrial power and the entire world in debt to the U.S. Today the U.S. is in debt to world and the U.S. is no longer the world's largest industrial economy. The value the dollar has today is based on momentum and sentiment and Trump is destroying it's sentiment. The dollar has been losing almost 2% of its value a month during Trump's current tenure and is down 15% since the beginning of his term. We have another 42 more months to go ...

    To be clear, this is the goal of Project 2025. Implicit in their trade objectives is bring to an end to the unique position of the dollar in world finance. The Heritage Foundation and Rupert Murdoch believes that we will be better off if the dollar is one of the world's reserve currencies and not THE world's reserve currency. They believe this will bring back 1950's industrial power to the U.S. -- but the tradeoff they are making for us is that everything we import could cost as much as 3X more than it did before they destroyed the value of the dollar.

    The value of the dollar is not only declining, but the interest on Treasuries is rising. As the value of the dollar declines, the fraction of the U.S. budget that goes to interest payments is simultaneously rising. Americans are all going to be significantly poorer in terms of the real purchasing power of our wages and responsible for ever increasing debt payments via our taxes. Americans will have to put more into the government to get less from it.

    This is going to be Trump's legacy and he will be compared in future history books to Rome's Emperor Honorius and Greece's Alexander the Great (Who though briefly immensely expanding the Greek Empire also is the reason it totally collapsed)
    • "They believe this will bring back 1950's industrial power to the U.S.". Just wow. That seems like a complete disconnect from reality, in my humble opinion.
      • Agree, they are trading wistful desire for the past where the proletariat work in factories for actual destruction of the position of the U.S. in the world economy and the reduced purchasing power of our actual wages. It is completely messed up. What will happen is ConAgra is going to find it ever more profitable to export the crops grown in the U.S. Read up on why the Irish starved despite lush fields full of crops during the Irish Potato famine to see where this leads.
        • I have no problem with SNAP benefits. As I said in another post, I think it supports Farmers. Somehow the MAGAs twisted the thinking into supporting Illegal Immigrants. As a matter of fact, as much as I think others will call me a Communist, I think it would be OK for everybody in the USA to have about $200 in SNAP benefits. We worked hard, built up a Great Nation, we increased productivity the the enth degree, we deserve a little food and a little less worry.
          • Nothing I said had anything to do with SNAP. I am pointing out that just because we produce crops in this country, does not mean that everyone will not starve. Where those crops go is controlled by the owners of those crops. During the Irish Potato Famine, the owners of the land exported all of the crops for profit letting the people who worked the fields starve. U.S. farmers, especially the corporate farmers will do this too if exporting becomes more profitable than selling to the U.S. market.
            • I said SNAP because the Big Bad Bill cut benefits Big Time, which will have ripple effects to American Farmers. Tariffs are also killing Farmers. The simple solution to this is to give all Americans a food subsidy, and those in need will immediately buy food. Give a dollar to a Billionaire, and they will say it is not enough, give a dollar to a poor person, and they will spend it on food.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )

      but the tradeoff they are making for us is that everything we import could cost as much as 3X more than it did before they destroyed the value of the dollar.

      Before or after you add on the tariffs? Don't forget those are on the sticker price and paid in USD, so if something costs you 3x as many dollars then you'll also need to pay 3x as much in tariffs on top as well (assuming the tariff rate doesn't change again, of course). Even at Trump's base tariff rate of 10%, that would mean something that would

      • My take on the tariffs is that Trump is punishing our friends, and US citizens. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine that Trump promised to end, is raging on larger than ever. Trump will disrupt every news cycle to distract from his failings. He keeps his buddies Putin and Kim close, and attacks our close friends in Canada. I don't get it.
      • Before Tariffs. The unlikely, but in the realm of possible, bottom for the dollar is a dollar buys 1/3 a euro by the end of Trump's term. It started at very close to 1:1 at the beginning of his term. The long bet right now by the world's financial experts as exhibited in the bond market is in 15 years the dollar will buy 2/3 a euro -- but that does not mean it will not be lower than this during Trump's term. The long bet is based on the relative strengths of the U.S. economy to the rest of the world as
  • Our monetary policy is the velvet glove on the iron fist of our military.

    We use our national debt to artificially prop up the value of the dollar. We then use the high value of the dollar to import trillions of dollars in products for a fraction of their actual value increasing your quality of life. That giant SUV you bought? That's why you can afford it.

    Donald Trump and the Republican party are breaking down all the systems that made that possible. As a direct result of this your quality of life is
    • I am hopeful that America will "wake up". The deficit of about 40 Trillion dollars is almost equal to the 40 Trillion dollars of wealth that the Rich accrued since 1980. Maybe America will start to value the middle class again. I have hope.

  • That is what it looks like in the earlier stages. Enjoy the show, it does not happen very often.

  • Trump is the monkey wrench thrown into the moving gears of a functional country. In the end, Trump will only leave feet first.

  • Debt is worth less, export worth more dollars, import heavily burdened. Only advantages.

  • He promised to lower the cost of things Americans use in daily life, and he’s done it. Americans can now buy greenbacks with their hard-earned savings of pounds, euros and yen for cheaper than they ever could under Biden.

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